Penguin Day! {Early Dismissal Day with the Kiddos...}

Let me start by saying,

"I DESPISE early dismissal days!

I usually work 9+ hours on an early dismissal day...

and I'm with the children that entire time.

Basically, I'm about to drop about half way into it.

These kind of days REQUIRE an action plan.

If I were to attempt to face one unprepared,

I'm pretty sure the children would cause me to commit Harry Caray (aka Hara Kiri).

(I actually had to look up the meaning of this phrase. 

I wasn't exactly sure what it meant,

but I very vividly remember my mother 

making this statement quite a bit while I was growing up.)

Last Wednesday, January 29, 2014, was an Early Dismissal Day 

at Thomas Jefferson Primary School.

And I WAS prepared.

(Naturally this BRILLIANT song popped into my head

when I said that...)

Anyway, I planned well for last week's Early Dismissal Day

and announced to the parents and children alike

weeks in advance that we were going to have:

PENGUIN DAY!

We read penguin themed books,

did penguin crafts,

ate goldfish crackers for snack 

(because penguins eat fish...),

and watched Happy Feet.

All around it was a pretty good day,

but I was still exhausted by the end of it.

We have another Early Dismissal Day scheduled 

for the end of this month and again, 

I'm planning like a crazy person

to make sure I'm prepared!

I will be sharing more about that later.

For now, though, I thought I would 

share our penguin crafts with you.

First we made:

Fluffy Belly Penguins.

These are beyond simple to make,

but always turn out ADORABLE!

(The credit for this project goes to childcareland.com)

I printed a penguin template off the internet,

gave one to each child and had them color them.

Next I had them glue white fluff to the penguins' bellies.

(We used tacky glue for this as we were having difficulty 

making the fluff stick to regular school glue.)

Finally, I had the children place drops of glue 

all around their penguin and then we sprinkled glitter all over the picture.

I love these Fluffy Belly Penguins!

Don't you?

I affectionately call this one:

The Lemon Penguin <3

Our next project was:

Mosaic Penguins.

For these, I drew a simple horseshoe template 

on blue construction paper for each child.

Then had them rip (or cut) up black, white, and orange

pieces of construction paper

and glue to the template.

Finally, I had them add the facial features.

I let the children decided how they were going to do this.

Some simply drew them on,

others cut the pieces out of scraps of paper.

Some of the girls even went a step further

and added hair accessories to their penguins :).

Not quite sure why I took so many photos of the fluffy penguins,

but not these...

Anyway, you get the point of what we did :)

Have you had any special theme days?

What did you do?

I would love to hear all about it!

Thank you for viewing!

Come back soon!